[intransitive]to talk about other people’s private lives, often in an unkind wayI can't stand here gossiping all day.gossip about somebody/somethingShe's been gossiping about you.Word Originlate Old Englishgodsibb, ‘godfather, godmother, baptismal sponsor’, literally ‘a person related to one in God’, from god

‘God’

+ sibb

‘a relative’

(see sib). In Middle English the sense was ‘a close friend, a person with whom one gossips’, hence ‘a person who gossips’, later (early 19th cent.) ‘idle talk’ (from the verb, which dates from the early 17th cent.).